Jill’s Jumble

So, part of what I wanted to do when I started this blog was to point out that there’s a lot of gluten free stuff out there.  You do have to expand your mind beyond food though.  This spring I’ve been having a great time admiring the flowers coming up in my garden.  Here’s a particular favorite:

I love crocuses.  My favorite color is purple.  We’ve got a few white ones and a few white and purple striped ones.  We also had snow drops.  Right now, we’ve got daffodils and lungworts.  While lungwort isn’t a particularly appealing name, both the flower and the foliage are pretty.  I’ll have to take a picture of ours for a future post.

The weather lately has been just gorgeous! We’ve been taking advantage of it a lot. Sunday we had a lovely dinner out on our deck.

The nicest thing about this meal is how quick it is the prepare! While you are melting butter in a pan, slice up a couple of chicken breasts so they resemble chicken tenders (or just use chicken tenders). Once they are in the pan cooking, cut up some romaine lettuce and any other veggies you like. Actually, in this case, you have your husband cut up the lettuce then add cucumbers. Apparently he hadn’t noticed that I’d snuck in a few snowpeas while he was still cutting up lettuce!

Here’s a close up:

I just used the melted, browned butter as my dressing. My husband added bottled dressing and croutons to his salad.

We’ve also been taking advantage of the new grill we just got. Lots of meals lately have involved sausages of various kinds. Last night my husband let me know that he’s not really fond of sausages unless they are hotdogs! Further inquiry resulted in the statement that last night’s smoked bratwurst were okay, but regular bratwurst isn’t. The pesto romano sausages I had in my first bento was also okay, though I recall he only ate one of those. Too bad I’ve got regular brats in the fridge I can’t wait to have because I love them. There’s very few sausages I don’t like.

I made a bento in a hurry yesterday that even features some mini sausages. But because I was running late, no pics were taken. It contained the mini sausages, cucumber, and celery with some PB to dip it in.

Tonight we’ll have steak and the second bell pepper with cheese, but on the grill this time!

Last night I went to a friend’s birthday party.   Knowing that I would most likely be allergic to whatever was served I brought a Bento dinner.  It features spring rolls I made by modifying this recipe.

A couple of strawberries, carrot, and snow peas round things out.

There’s been one other bento I didn’t post about.  Most of the spring rolls stuck to the cookie sheet I cooked them on so they weren’t nearly as pretty.  Some of the broken ones plus some cucumber went to work with me on Friday.

Dinner tonight was pork chops cooked in coconut oil with cheesy peppers and applesauce. This picture didn’t come out as well as I would have liked. I didn’t think to take a picture fast enough!

The cheesy peppers are a really versatile food that a friend of mine came up with for camping. She starts them in the oven at home then rewarms that for meal time at the campsite. At home we either cook them in the oven or on the grill. We haven’t gotten our grill up on the deck yet so these were done in the oven. Here’s the recipe:

Cheesy Peppers

Ingredients:

• Bell Pepper
• Grated Cheese

Instructions:

1. Cut the bell pepper into wedges along the ribs so that they form cups when they are lying on their skin.
2. Place grated cheese inside the cup.
3. Cook either on a cookie sheet in the oven set at 350F or on your grill until the cheese is browned. Approximately 25 minutes.

In my case I used goat cheese which doesn’t seem to brown the way cow’s milk cheese does. So I just cooked them until the cheese was obviously melted. I love that the peppers aren’t fully cooked through. They come out surprisingly sweet which somehow works well with the cheese.

And here’s a picture of my husband. He wants me to write a blog just about him. He’ll just have to accept cameo appearances in this blog.

As I’ve been exploring the way I now need to eat to accomodate my allergies, I have run across bento. I’ve always loved Japanese food so this is ideal for me! So to celebrate the beginning of this blog I give you my first bento!

It contains a number of naturally gluten free foods. Cucumbers, mustard, polenta, and meat. Granted you may want to be careful of what mustards and prepared meats you buy, but generally these foods are gluten free.

It’s nothing spectacular as an example of bento but in good bento tradition I’m using up leftovers!